If Biden is so smart and savvy and experienced, how could he have been so stupid about his war vote?

"Oh, yeah, it's so obvious I'm a Washington outsider," Palin countered, "and someone just not used to the way you guys operate. Because here you voted for the war and now you oppose the war."

Palin's other job was to show America that she is not an intolerant right-wing kook. And she did so deftly on the issue of expanding benefits to same-sex couples, as Alaska does.

"Well, not if it goes closer and closer towards redefining the traditional definition of marriage between one man and one woman," she answered.

But: "I also want to clarify, if there's any kind of suggestion at all from my answer that I would be anything but tolerant of adults in America choosing their partners, choosing relationships that they deem best for themselves, you know, I am tolerant and I have a very diverse family and group of friends and even within that group you would see some who may not agree with me on this issue, some very dear friends who don't agree with me on this issue."

Camp McCain can breathe a sigh of relief. But first, campaign staffers should kick themselves for over-handling the Alaska governor.

Then McCain better get to work shaming Congress for larding the bailout bill with all that pork and working to get both houses to pass a bill that revokes the extra spending heaped onto this shameful package.

It's too bad Palin didn't hit Biden harder for being part of the big-spending Washington culture that can't get difficult things done, but sure knows how to spend money it doesn't have. But there will be no shortages of opportunities for both McCain and Palin to do so in the future.